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On July 8, New Jersey will have a new law called the Open Public Records Act or OPRA for short. The citation is NJSA 47:1A-1 et seq. This expands the current Open Public Meetings Act which required information from meetings be available to the public. Libraries will be required to comply with OPRA. Each library should appoint a "Custodian of Records" to handle information requests. Library records are still considered confidential under this law and would require a subpena issued by a court to be released. Types of materials that would require immediate access are: " budgets, bills, vouchers, contracts, including collective negotiations agreements and individual employment contracts and public employee salary and overtime information. You will also be required to supply an employee's salary, title, length of service, date of separation and reason for separation if requested. Many materials that libraries keep in compliance with the State's Record Retention schedule are also subject to this law. The law also tries to address privacy concerns by excluding portions of any document which discloses the social security number, credit card number, unlisted telephone number or driver license number of any person except for use by any governmental agency. If a person is denied access to a record they can file a complaint with the Government Records Council or file an action in Superior Court. The NJLA Administration and Management Section will hold a training session on OPRA this summer. Please send any questions you might have about OPRA to ptumulty@njla.org so that we can prepare for that session. Under this law, a Government Records Council (GRC) was established in the Department of Community Affairs. To give you the latest information the GRC has developed a website, www.nj.gov/grc, You will find preliminary information such as the Custodian Handbook, FAQ's, a "readable" version of the OPRA law, Citizens' Guide, as well as a regularly updated GRC PowerPoint presentation. The GRC poster and citizen flyer will be available on the GRC website on July 1st. All website material will be updated and additional information added to this website during the coming months. Most of the document require the latest version of the Adobe Acrobat Reader. The following describes the documents mentioned above: a. The Custodian Handbook is designed to assist records custodians with understanding OPRA requirements. This material will be updated and supplemented around July 1. b. Frequently Asked Questions - A list of FAQs has been posted on the GRC website. Click on the FAQs if you want to view on screen or download these questions. This list may serve as a reference guide for those of you with questions about OPRA or the GRC. Please check here first before you contact the GRC with questions. c. There is a "readable" version of the entire OPRA law on the website. The text of the original law has been specially formatted to assist the reader with understanding OPRA. The formatting consists of bullet points, paragraph breaks and spacing to assist the reader. Some section numbers are missing because they have been repealed. This material may be downloaded. d. The Citizens' Guide to OPRA is information on the law targeted to public concerns. The latest version of the GRC PowerPoint presentation may be viewed on the GRC website or downloaded. If you reproduce the presentation, the Government Records Council's name must remain on the presentation. The Poster and Flier explaining the public's right of access to government records and addressing the denial of access appeal process will be available on the GRC web site beginning July 1, 2002. The Council's toll-free hotline will
not be active until July 8. The best ways to contact
the Council until that time are via e-mail at Also the League of Municipalities has information on its website including a sample form for the request of open records. The League's website on Open Records can be found at http://www.cityconnections.com/njleag/accpub.html State Library OPRA form (State Library records only) |
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